So, it’s been a rude awakening for a lot us to see children being separated from parents at America’s southern border. Many of us have not fully understood the history of our country doing this to families until this wave of separations occurred right before our eyes. We are learning.
Aside from separation en masse, as has happened so recently, deliberate separation was a big part of the slavery system in America, and while it is packaged in a different way, it still happens to families of color through the incarceration system.
There’s an inhumanity that many of us have never witnessed in family separation. Hearing the stories of toddlers being taken from their parents’ arms—even a nursing infant being taken away from its mother—has been especially unfathomable to many of us.
And so, we have raised our voices. We have gathered to rally. We have raised money. We have written emails, signed petitions, made phone calls, and we have worried about these kids.
Today, I saw a screenshot of a Tweet declaring that anyone believing abortion is okay should not speak about the current situation at the border, and now scattered around the country.
Piety and the judgment of other people’s choices or “sins” is a luxury of the privileged.
When I say it’s a luxury of the privileged, I mean that it is very easy to make judgments about reproductive choices, and the care of displaced or unwanted children when you were conceived and born into loving relationships, never questioned that you were supported, and never had to go without care or things you needed. It is breathlessly easy to judge the choices other women might face when you have never been in personal danger, or the victim of abuse.
For a lot of us, that just isn’t the case.
I am the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy. I was born before Roe vs. Wade was decided, but it wouldn’t have mattered if abortion was legal, because my mom never could have made that choice.
My mom was sixteen, born to a poor, abusive, and uneducated family. If I can believe some of the things she has shared with me about her childhood, she wasn’t planned or wanted either.
My father, also a teen, was born into a slightly more affluent and respectable family. Without much effort, he was easily persuaded that my mom’s promiscuity made it pretty likely he wasn’t actually my father.
My mom had no education about reproductive matters, sex or anything associated with it. She was desperate for attention, affection, acceptance and anything that resembled love. I think that’s at least part of the reason she mistook sex for being cared about. And the combination of ignorance and desperation is what got her knocked up. She thought she would only get pregnant if she was thinking about having a baby when she was having sex.
My father walked away from the situation—completely free of consequences. He finished high school, married someone else, and had a child he wanted. I tried connecting with him when I was a tween. I just wanted to know him. I accepted he wasn’t interested, and I moved on.
Some might say that my mom made a “selfless” choice in deciding to have and keep me. She gave up a lot.
She did briefly go to a home for unwed mothers with the intent to stay through her pregnancy, and then to give me up for adoption.
She couldn’t do it. My mom doesn’t exactly have a high tolerance for uncomfortable situations. She lasted two weeks. I don’t think her heart was ever really in that option. And so, she decided to have me and keep me—much the same way a child chooses a stuffed animal to cuddle and love. I think she was looking for a kind of love she never experienced. Before becoming pregnant, my mom was already a high school drop-out. She had no skills, education, familial support or future.
My mom has never been selfless a day in her life. Lonely? Yes. Pragmatic? No. Self-sufficient? Not even now.
So, she brought me into a home of abuse and desperation. And only a few short years later, she did it again when she married an abusive husband.
Some might at this point look at me and say “Yes, but look at how fortunate you are! You got to be born! You have made the best of everything!”
Not many of us will argue that we would be better off if we had never been born, but those who would cheerlead you simply for making it out of a uterus are usually not people who have ever had to worry about the kind of decisions someone like my mom faced.
It’s easy to make blanket statements about the morality of people who make “wrong” choices when in almost any difficult situation in which you have found yourself, you had the support and resources to truly have options. It’s also easy to talk about someone needing to accept the consequences of their actions when you have just been lucky enough to not be caught under the same circumstances.
Most people who choose to end a pregnancy aren’t immoral. They aren’t selfish. They aren’t avoiding a consequence. It is irresponsible to have a child you do not want, and/or cannot care for. My mom was irresponsible. Her choices have impacted my entire life. And if every single child in foster care or in search of a forever home was suddenly placed in permanent homes, the argument that giving up a child for adoption is the only moral option might work.
That’s not the case.
My mom could have given me a better and safer life, but the circumstances that drove her to desperately seek love in inappropriate ways were the same circumstances that led her to make an emotionally immature and selfish choice. She kept me, simply because she wanted to.
I respect and admire any woman who faces the consequences of her actions by considering her choices with respect to what is unselfish.
Could I care for a child properly? Could I commit to healthy choices during a pregnancy? Am I in an unstable or dangerous living situation? Could I be strong enough, and unselfish enough to complete a pregnancy and give that child away? Was my pregnancy the result of irresponsible behavior, or was it a failure of my contraceptive? Was I raped?
My younger sister is one of the strongest women I know. She became pregnant, and due to a very mixed bag of circumstances and no true support, she hid her pregnancy and nearly died giving birth. She is one of the kindest, most loving, and caring people I know. And I know she still loves the little girl she unselfishly gave to a couple who could give her all that she could not. Even if she had not gone on to have a second child, my sister would always have qualified as a fantastic mother, because she was able to summon the strength to love that child more than herself.
If, however, she had chosen to end her pregnancy—as her then boyfriend pressured her to do—I would not think any less of her strength, or her morality. As long as it was a choice she made in the interest of not bringing a child into an unstable, unsupported, and ill-prepared existence, I would still be proud of her.
I don’t claim a faith. I do believe in acceptance and love. I believe in body autonomy. I believe in privacy. I value life. I fought hard to have my own daughter. I wanted the baby I miscarried.
I don’t think that my respect for another woman’s beliefs, realities, circumstances, and choices makes me less moral than someone who does not respect or understand those things. And it certainly does not make me less qualified to speak out and cry for a sobbing toddler who does not understand what is happening to them because of a truly selfish and immoral policy implemented to manipulate, and pleasure a monster’s base. I’ve been a crying child in dangerous circumstances I could not understand at the hands of a monster.
The child in front of me will always command my attention. The child suffering in front of me will always mobilize me to action. I believe in family—probably even more than someone who has always been part of a stable one—because that just wasn’t a luxury afforded to me at birth. It wasn’t a luxury throughout my childhood.
Life is more than being born. It doesn’t stop when a baby pops out. It doesn’t stop when that baby is brought to an invisible line in the dirt. Anyone who has never had the luxury of privilege understands that piety has no place in arguing for the life of a child. Morals are not defined by recognizing another woman’s circumstances and choices are not the same as mine.
I will hold the hand of any woman facing the consequences of her actions, and the tough choices that might come along with that—not because I approve of her actions or choices, but because I understand the consequences of being a product of those choices.
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